


in the eye of the beholder

by brawlite



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Sheer Multitude Of Eyes, Anal Sex, Angel Sex, Biblical Body Horror, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Body Horror, Body Worship, Catholicism, Centuries of it, Devotion, Eyes, Just so much love, Love, Many eyes, Other, Sex, Wings, a gentle smattering of catholic feels, but also many more wings than just two, but like biblical angels with all the eyes and the fire and the fear, but mostly on the part of the author, maybe also:, yeah that feels right, you picking up what I'm putting down?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:46:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlite/pseuds/brawlite
Summary: “That’s quite a lot of eyes,” Crowley says.





	in the eye of the beholder

It’s not like Crowley had forgotten.

It’s just -- it’s been about six thousand years since he fell. Some things are bound to slip from his consciousness. Some things are bound to be discarded.

It’s not his fault, really.

Demons -- well. They’re more of a _vibe_. A bad feeling. A twisted sort of nothingness, a wretched sensation in your gut. It stands to reason that angels would be more of the same, just...opposite. Warm and pleasant and kind. And of course that _is_ true, but it’s lacking, too. Fundamentally so.

It’s just -- he forgot how _beautiful_ angels really are. He shouldn’t have. He’d been one, for Christ’s sake. But when he was an angel, they didn’t exactly have mirrors, and Crowley doesn’t spend all that much time ruminating on has-beens or past-selves. That’s the kind of self-actualizing bullshit that he invented precisely because it doesn’t _work_.

“That’s quite a lot of eyes,” Crowley says.

His mouth is open. He can’t quite remember how to close it.

He feels _seen_. He feels naked. He feels stripped bare.

A warmth flows over him, the kind of breeze you only get on perfectly sunny summer days. It feels like a kiss, a touch, an embrace.

Crowley unfurls his own wings underneath himself, though they are so lacking in comparison to Aziraphale’s. Not as bright, not as soft, not as numerous. Not as truly terrifying.

Aziraphale isn’t exactly himself, sometimes, when he has Crowley on his back.

He’s not _not_ himself, either. As Crowley arches his spine, as his hands grapple at the sheets, he can see Aziraphale’s golden, familiar face in the spinning blaze above him. He can see those blue, blue eyes -- just the two of them, kind and loving and patient. But then Aziraphale smiles and Crowley’s eyes cross and then he _breathes_ and there’s _more_ eyes -- seeing and brilliant and terrifying, all around. Not all of them blue -- some the color of polished gold, some the color of Eve’s apple, some, the color of hope and light itself.

Crowley’s heart is hammering away in his chest, his poor facsimile of a human body not truly prepared -- even with his demonic influence -- for keeping up with such a celestial show. Of course, it tries, and Crowley helps it along the way, but there’s only so much _perception_ it’s capable of before his vision blurs and his nerves catch fire. Or maybe that’s just the thing Aziraphale is doing with his tongue.

“Beautiful,” Crowley manages. “Hell, you’re _beautiful_.” The words tumble out of his mouth, getting caught up on his tongue. He threatens to breathe them in through a gasp, but Aziraphale hears him anyway. He must, because then he’s smiling with all of himself, so bright that Crowley has to close his eyes to the light of it.

Aziraphale calls him exquisite in return, calls him perfect, calls him flawless. Crowley doesn’t know how he can say that when Crowley is surrounded by everything that Aziriphale is, when he is so aware of how he pales in comparison to the angel.

And of course, even though Crowley didn’t articulate that thought out _loud_ , Aziraphale catches it anyway with a bit of an angelic scoff, something that feels like a flick to the back of Crowley’s head, smothered immediately by a pleasant kiss. A scold and a reward, all in one. It’s so very Aziraphale that Crowley can’t help but feel the heat of it in his chest.

Crowley reaches up to touch, to bury his fingers into a multitude of feathers, to urge Aziraphale closer. He triggers a ripple, a harmonious hum that begins in the east and continues to the west, the sound of horns and harps and heartbeats all at once.

“Oh, you like that, do you?” Crowley speaks, voice swept up immediately in the din of it, in the cacophonous melody.

He digs his fingers in and buries them in the sun-warmed sands of Kadesh, in the winds of Babylon. He loses himself in the way that Aziraphale sighs, in the way Crowley’s name chimes out in his head in the shape of a moan. An answering one falls from his own mouth, getting caught at the back of his throat, body betraying him as it tumbles into an embarrassing whine. Aziraphale always gets him so easy, so pliant. It’s frustrating, really, how good the angel is at temptation, how easily he plays Crowley’s body like a singing, stringed thing.

For a moment, Aziraphale is perched over him, straddling Crowley by the hips, soft legs trapping him in. He is warm, and warmer still when he leans down to press a kiss to Crowley’s throat, to his pulse. Lingering there until Crowley’s skin blossoms red under his teeth, until Crowley is panting and singing heavenly praise. It’s only when he squirms that Aziraphale moves lower, worship shifting down to Crowley’s nipples. Those strange little buds of nerves that Crowley had never particularly understood practically -- that is, until Aziraphale had shown him how pleasant they could be when it came to hedonism in its purest form.

“ _Angel_ ,” Crowley breathes out, eyes closing to the pleasure of it, to the thrum of heat that wells up in his chest at the attention.

Aziraphale answers him with another smile, a full body thing that illuminates the entire room, that sends fire blazing through Crowley’s veins.

When he opens his eyes to perhaps catch a glimpse of golden hair again, Aziraphale is aflame, blue and gold and looking down at Crowley from a hundred different pairs of eyes.

Crowley cannot stop the shiver that goes through him, the spark of instinctive fear and reverence and idolization. His chest fills with it, with the enormity of _love_ he has for this angelic being, for the beauty of this particular form of Aziraphale’s. It’s not necessarily his _true_ form, because everything Aziraphale chooses to be is true -- past, present, future. All of it perfection, all of it pure.

“I want to touch you,” Crowley says, even as he is touching, even as he buries his fingers into the muscles of the angel’s wings and tugs him even closer still.

Sometimes, it’s like Crowley can never get Aziraphale close enough.

Like he might lose Aziraphale, like he might one day have to face that awful, vacant feeling he felt the day of the fire once more. Crowley doesn’t think he can _do_ that again, doesn’t think he could face this brave new world with all of its freedoms and its gifts and its indulgences without his friend.

Without his angel.

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale says, in his actual voice now, chiding and patient and loving all at once.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” Crowley says to one of the sets of eyes, cheeks flushed. “I only asked if I could touch you.”

Of course, Aziraphale would never fall for such a simple ruse. He’s thwarted Crowley for too many years to not see so easily through him.

Reality shimmers and shifts, and Crowley feels the press of flesh against him again.

“I’m not going anywhere, Crowley. Not without you.”

Crowley can’t help but smile himself stupid. He also can’t help the way his hands start to wander, not with all this tangible humanity right at his fingertips. His touch drifts from Aziraphale’s wings and over the smooth skin of his arms, down to the softness of his belly. Just touching, just appreciating this form for what it is. He thumbs over a nipple and enjoys the way Aziraphale’s mouth parts, gifting Crowley with a sweet, involuntary breath.

“You’re beautiful like this, too,” Crowley says, admiring the view.

There’s nothing less terrifying about Aziraphale in his more human form, even though he is more historically frightening in his angelic one; there’s strength hidden underneath his pale skin, firm resolve set under his golden hair. There is danger in every curve of him, fierceness interwoven with it all. He is magnificent and lovely, and Crowley will never forget the way he looked holding his flaming sword -- at the beginning and at the end. A heavenly overlay to every image Crowley has of him.

For so many years, this angel has terrified him in a vast multitude of ways. Sometimes, for how similar he felt to Crowley, so much like a past iteration of himself, distorted and through a mirror -- but mostly, for how different Aziraphale is from him. How inherently unknowable. Frightening, in his true nature. So kind, so patient -- and with a resolve so fiery Crowley sometimes fears it might engulf him whole.

Above him, Aziraphale blushes, a warm tint washing over his face in a way that reminds Crowley momentarily of their days spent in Pompeii. Of sitting beside each other, feet dangling into a fountain of cool, pristine water that boiled away only hours later.

“Divine,” Crowley says, leaning up to try and catch the angel’s lips in a kiss.

“ _Crowley,_ ” Aziraphale scoffs. His fingers stretch out over Crowley’s chest, pushing him down. Subduing him so easily. “Be still.”

Crowley blinks and watches Aziraphale shift, spinning, a turning wheel upon wheels above him. A shiver courses through Crowley, magnificent and terrifying all at once. He’s dizzy with it, eyes trying to hold onto the miracle right in front of his eyes.

“This sort of a collaborative process, angel.” When Crowley reaches out to touch, his hands can’t find purchase, can’t find anything corporeal. Not that that matters: dragging his fingers through starstuff has never felt better. “I can’t _collaborate_ without moving.”

Aziraphale feels hungry. Crowley can feel it too, can feel the way it eats up at him, seeping into Crowley’s veins through his touch and his breath, right down to his very atoms.

 _We seem to be collaborating just fine,_ Aziraphale says, though he doesn’t quite have a mouth anymore to say it. The words, instead, drift through Crowley’s consciousness like a lingering kiss.

Crowley can’t seem to find the strength of will to complain.

Especially not when Aziraphale’s touch drifts over him like a wave -- scalding and invigorating and severe. He groans with it, body arching off the sheets, spine twisting as his lungs fill with heavenly fire. He longs for it, searching for _more_.

 _Savage_ , Crowley thinks, as Aziraphale reaches into him and coils around his heart, slithering in a way that feels familiar but is so foreign, too. His touch is too light, too full of love. It heats Crowley up in a way that he could never begin to accomplish -- the angel too full of a vicious tenderness he isn’t capable of. The feeling moves down to his loins, cascading through his nerves, through the rivers and avenues that compose him.

“More,” Crowley begs.

“More,” he prays. Every ounce of himself falling to sweet supplication.

“ _Please_ ,” he invokes, repeating the word, the feeling, over and over, like the decades of the Rosary.

Aziraphale, ever a benevolent being, finally capitulates with something that feels like an indulgent, self-satisfied smile. He does so love to string Crowley out until he is a pleading mess, a disaster of something that has a hard time remaining corporeal, just due to the sheer difficulty of it when subjected to such great pleasures.

Crowley shudders when hundreds of eyes look down upon him, tender and loving and fierce in turns. He feels seen, feels splayed open and on display.

With a twist, he stretches himself out more: presenting all that he is. Arms splayed, eyes wide. Giving himself over: a gift. An offering.

“Oh Crowley,” Aziraphale says, gentle hands appearing to cup his face.

“Angel,” Crowley breathes.

Finally, Aziraphale is close enough to kiss. And pleased enough with his efforts to let Crowley catch him in one, too, ever generous.

It feels like stepping into the sun-warmed waters of the Dead Sea. Like flying too close to the sun during a solar flare. Like smelling the apple blossoms in the garden, so, so long ago.

It feels like all of heaven’s love focused upon him at once. Universal and engulfing and so beautifully torturous, too.

“You’ve been so patient for me,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley wants to hate the way that Aziraphale likes to take his time. He does. But Crowley can never truly get enough of this. And while torture is normally _Crowley’s_ thing, the angel is so very, very good at it. Crowley appreciates true artistry, he really does. Especially when Aziraphale has been torturing him in this particular, wicked way.

When Aziraphale kneels between Crowley’s parted legs and trails his soft, perfectly manicured hands over Crowley’s body, it feels like worship. He’s so careful, so dedicated. Crowley knows that no one has ever loved him quite this way, so truly dedicated and wholly, not even God herself.

When Aziraphale pushes into him, so painfully slowly, Crowley’s vision fills with stars and eyes and universes. Millions of atoms and planets and prayers blinking back at him, catching him as he falls, as he grapples and holds onto feathery wings for anchor.

“Angel,” Crowley praises when Aziraphale pushes and pushes and fills him up completely.

There’s no space left within himself.

Everything is Aziraphale, everything is holy.

It’s only when Crowley lets out a breath, a long one that he didn’t realize he’d been holding, that Aziraphale begins to move.

It’s heaven. It’s hell. It’s the fire of existence coursing through him with every stroke, the magnificence of life.

Aziraphale moans when Crowley’s fingers sink into the feathers of his wings once more. Crowley threads through them, pulling, urging, kneading until he feels Aziraphale shiver underneath his touch. Until the angel’s sounds join the melody of Crowley’s -- jagged breaths, guttural groans and whimpered whines.

“Please,” Crowley hears himself ask, even though he is unsure what exactly it is that he wants. This is all he needs, full of glory, forever and ever.

Crowley’s fingers scratch down the skin of Aziraphale’s back, leaving red inscriptions of Crowley’s passion in their wake. Aziraphale’s back arches in a delightfully responsive way, simultaneously driving him further into Crowley and giving Crowley such a beautiful view of all that soft skin on display.

Aziraphale’s strokes pick up speed and Crowley’s vision swims. His breathing gets heavy, wet -- not enough oxygen in the world to keep him steady, to fill his lungs up sufficiently.

It feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, toeing the edge. Teetering, standing above the vast beyond. Aziraphale is driving into him faster and faster now, pushing Crowley toward that edge, molecule by molecule.

Aziraphale reaches down and wraps soft fingers around Crowley, grip perfectly tight and pace just as unrelenting. He thumbs over the head of Crowley’s length, smearing the wetness there, the dripping need. There’s just a hint of teasing to his touch, a bite of savage taunting. The brush of a callous, the hint of a nail someplace so tender. It’s so _much_ , so delightful, so perfectly depraved. Aziraphale gives and gifts, unrelenting. Crowley tries to bite back the scream as his pleasure builds and builds and --

Suddenly he is aflame, engulfed in the light of Aziraphale’s fire. Full of him and surrounded by him. Consumed.

Aziraphale folds dozens of wings around the two of them as Crowley rides out the sensations, losing himself to the burning flame of it. He shudders as Aziraphale buries himself deep with his release, anointing Crowley with a kiss at the same time, eating up all of Crowley’s sounds like one of his treasured earthly delights. Crowley cherishes the devotion, bestowing Aziraphale with all his praise, each and every piece of his lingering pleasure.

Eventually, Aziraphale’s many wings unfurl and slide away into the aether, leaving Crowley with just the image of his angel in a very human body, towering over him, satisfaction written all over his face. There’s still some licks of fire tonguing at his skin, the blink of a few extra eyes in the spaces in between -- but mostly, he’s all human. Or as close as he’ll ever really get.

“Thank you,” Crowley exhales, sweet and soft. He’s still panting, still catching his breath. “Thank you, thank you.”

He has years of gratitude and recognition to make up for. No matter how many times he says _thank you_ , it never quite feels like enough.

“Hush,” Aziraphale says, lips hovering over Crowley’s pulse again. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“ _Dramatic_? _Me?_ ” Crowley says. Incredulity catches his breath for him. “Just _how_ many eyes did you have only a moment ago?”

The angel blushes a pretty pink. The color of perfect peonies, of a nice chilled rosé. The color of the painted dawn, the morning after Armageddon.

“Not _that_ many,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Whatever you say, angel. Not like I don’t know you didn’t do it for me specifically.”

“Oh stop it.” Aziraphale presses a kiss to Crowley’s lips. It tastes like love, like heavenly tenderness.

When his angel pulls back, for just a moment, Crowley is gifted with another glimpse of fiery, spinning wheels and hundreds upon hundreds of eyes, too innumerous and terrifying to truly count.

“Oh, you _show off._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i should apologize for something here, but maybe that's just the catholicism talking. 
> 
> if you've got the time and the inclination, i would love a comment to hear what you think!
> 
> you can catch me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/brawlite) or [tumblr](http://brawlite.tumblr.com), if you are so inclined.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] in the eye of the beholder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21054341) by [carboncopies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carboncopies/pseuds/carboncopies)




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